This is a brilliant read.
Wonderful well written plot and story line that had me engaged from the start.
Love the well fleshed out characters and found them believable.
Great suspense and found myself second guessing every thought I had continuously.
Can't wait to read what the author brings out next.
Recommend reading.

I was provided an ARC from NetGalley and the publisher.  This is my own honest voluntary review.

The premise of this book had so much promise, but unfortunately - for me anyway - I found it rather lacking in structure and pace. The storyline itself did sound intriguing, but I just couldn't feel myself being drawn in by this book.

Grace waves her daughter off at the airport, never to see her again.  She refuses to believe the official verdict and does her own digging and doesn’t like what she finds.  I have always really liked the books I’ve read by this author but not this one.  It was tedious the way Grace always thought she knew best, not to mention the whinging and as for the endless alcohol, well I simply turned the pages, not even skim reading them.  It was also predictable, sorry to say.  I liked that it was set in Horsham, West Sussex.  Despite this blip, still looking forward to the next book!

This book was okay, but the description on the cover, A psychological thriller with a stunning twist,' was a stretch of the imagination. The premise of this book was better than the execution.



The Prologue is written in the third person present tense PoV of the killer, as he/she watches the victim and then kills her in cold blood.

 

In Chapter 1, we are taken to the first-person present tense PoV of Grace Woods, a divorced single mother of two girls, 21-year-old Abigail and 17-year-old Ella. We meet Grace on the morning on which the police inform her that Abigail, who had gone on a holiday to Cape Town, has been found dead on a beach there.

Grace’s ex-husband Bob is now settled into his new life, with wife Sue and 5-year-old son. But Grace whose life is invested in her daughters finds herself broken and relapsing into an alcohol addiction that she had steered away from for a decade. Her best friends, Natasha and Ruth pitch in to help the household.

Slowly Grace discovers things about Abi that she finds hard to believe. She learns that Abi was a sugar baby, who had three regular sugar daddies, that she arrived at Cape Town a full five days before she was to meet her close friends, Becky and Ethan, the daughter and son of Natasha and Ruth respectively, and that she was pregnant.

South African police arrest a drug addict for the murder of Abi and close the case, but Grace can’t accept this as the truth. Her intuition tells her that Abi’s death was not a random killing.

But somebody is not happy with Grace’s snooping. She begins to receive threats and feels conflicted about whether to look for the truth or get on with her life. When her anxiety gets the better of her, she takes recourse to alcohol, and slowly loses her grip on reality.

Will Grace solve the mystery of who killed her daughter? Or will the killer get to her?

 

Between the main narrative from Grace’s PoV, we see blog posts from Anya’s blog. Anya was the pseudonym under which Abigail featured on the sugar daddy site. The style of writing is markedly different from the style used in Grace’s narrative.

The author did a fabulous job of showing Grace’s decline, the speed at which she gives way, giving in to her addiction and messing her relationship with her only living daughter, Ella. It also prompts us to think of her as being a not-quite-reliable witness.

But it occupied far too much space in the story. I can’t stand it when protagonists give in to their alcohol addictions and sleepwalk their way through the plot. It’s an easy plot trope that almost all thriller authors take recourse to, particularly if the character is female. I’d like to see a novel in which the protagonist isn’t addicted to substances of any kind.

The book unwittingly poses a critique of marriages, where ultimately every secure relationship seems to show the strain. The other characters such as Natasha and Ruth have stable marriages, but the chinks in their relationships are showing.

 

The book held my interest well, but I would have liked it even more if there had been less of Grace’s alcohol addiction and more of the dynamics between the sugar daddies and the sugar babies. The book purports to hinge on the arrangement and I expected to see more of that. It was unbelievable that a sugar daddy would pay vast sums of money for a platonic relationship. Those old men are sleazy and they aren’t about to shower fortunes for some pleasant chit-chat.

At the end of it, I didn’t know what to think of Abi. I didn’t find her likeable, certainly not the way her close friends projected her as having made the world a better place. Just how did she do that? Becky and Ethan both swore that she was a great friend, but we didn’t get to see any of that in real time.

Also, Ella, at 17, should have been a lot more mature and at least attempted to understand her mother. There are kids way younger who mature fast when tragedy enters their lives. But Ella chose to cry for help and run to her father’s house.

Some more chapters from Abi’s PoV might have helped us to understand her motivations. The blog posts are not enough.

This is the first book I have read by this author, it was an enjoyable read , I felt it was a little rushed and far fetched in places but it kept you guessing right to the end

Grace’s student daughter Abi is away on holiday in South Africa when she is murdered. Grace cannot accept the local police's version of events and is desperate to find out what happened to her daughter, while battling her own personal demons at home. 

The book flows well and is easy to follow. While Grace could be a frustrating character, you did truly feel for her quest to find justice for her daughter. Some elements did require a suspension of disbelief, but I don't mind that in a thriller. I particularly enjoyed getting Abi's POV in her blog posts. It's a quick read that will keep you turning the pages. 

Thank you to NetGalley and Inkubator Books for this ARC.

This was such a great read, enjoyed it thoroughly, i was hooked from the first page, great storyline and loads of twists and turns , highly recommend this book x

Every parent’s worst nightmare: something happens to your child. Grace is caught up in the worst nightmare of her life. Her daughter Abi has gone away on a dream vacation, ad something terrible has happened. What is a Mother to do when her worst imaginings have become reality? Does she accept what she is told or does she set out to determine what has really transpired? There are questions that she needs answers to, and things that she didn’t know before. She has to reconcile her reality with that of Abi’s and determine how to continue on this journey to find the truth. Thank you to NetGalley, the author and publisher for allowing me to review this book. It truly is a thriller with a surprising twist! I think you will definitely enjoy this read!

I couldn’t get into this book so it was a DNF for me. I am sorry to the author that I could not finish.

I was intrigued by the synopsis of this book, however, I unfortunately found it to be a bit run of the mill. The characters were well built but found it hard to get into at the start and I feel this may have affected my overall enjoyment. May be one for other readers

When Grace finds out her daughter Abi is dead and she was a pregnant sugar-baby her whole world is upended. This is a fantastic read but was damped by the way Grace turns to alcohol to cope with her daughter's murder. The ending plays out so well and it was hard to put down!

A young woman is murdered. Her mother struggles with grief and the need to know why, who, what happened. Her two best friends try to help.
What will she find? Did she really even know her daughter?

A good and interesting read!

I would recommend this to everyone who loves a good story with captivating characters! Definitely a good read!

Wow, what a Shockingly good book!  Will be looking for more and more written by this author!  It provided my musts in thrillers, kept me on the edge of my seat, shocked me, thrilled me, and even chilled me!  Character development was excellent, while plot may seem to be unoriginal it was actually very uniquely done!  Highly, highly recommend!  Don’t delay, grab today, but clear schedules for this thrill ride full of twists!

Miranda Rijks has got it figured out. This is the fourth book of hers that I’ve read and they just keep getting better. This is a great twisty turny book. You aren’t sure about the narrator and everyone seems a little shady. I didn’t know the twist until the last second. 

This was fast paced, well written, not too wordy and a quick enjoyable read. I will continue to read this author as she never lets me down. 

I was provided this book in exchange for my honest thoughts.

I really enjoyed the way Ms. Rijks writes, she was able to write a really good mystery with interesting characters. I enjoyed reading this book and look forward to more from the author.

This is my second book I have read by Miranda Rijks. The plot, the pacing and the writing were all good but like the previous book I read of hers I was a bit frustrated with the MC, in this case Grace Woods, the mother to 21 year old Abi Woods who is killed while on a holiday in Cape Town, South Africa. Grace does not believe that Abi's death was a result of a random crime and she takes it upon herself to find out what exactly happened and is shocked to find out that not only Abi was a sugar babe but she was also pregnant at the time of her death. However, the biggest hindrance in Grace finding out the truth is herself. As a person who has had issues with alcoholism in the past, Grace goes back to drinking heavily which makes her family, friends and police question her actions and reasoning instead of helping her figure out the truth. It was frustrating to see Grace, who is on the right path to figuring out what happened to her daughter, nearly spoil all her hard work as a result of her alcoholism and wallowing in self-pity. 

My thanks to NetGalley, the publisher Inkubator Books and the author for the e-Arc of the book. 

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐💫

I absolutely love this book. Definitely top ones that i have read this year.  The main character I had love/hate relationship. I like the writing style of it. Only thing i wished was more point if view from the daughter side before she died.

Dark and disturbing, you have to read  The Arrangement!

I loved this book, I hadn’t heard anything about it other than the synopsis and so I went in blind....and so should you! Stop reading reviews and get it ordered! The less you know the better. All you need to know is.....read this book ASAP!

If I had known I wouldn't be able to put this book down, I would have read it sooner.  The story grabbed me from rbe beginning and I neexed to fi d out what happened.  As Grace kept discovering more about Abi and her secrets, I was down further into the story and need to know what happens next.